Saturday, February 6, 2010

Journalism:- The occupation of reporting, writing, editing, photographing, or broadcasting news or of conducting any news organization as a BUSINESS.

This is a country where truth counts for nothing anymore. This is one of those countries where no-one knows what really happened, where journalists who shed tears win awards, where opinions are treated as final word, where the media is a primetime soap opera. We live in a society, biased and opinionated, where the media is the new law. Broadcasting sentiments, it is simply a new way for television to lease advertising space. If we live in a society that is truly by the people, for the people and of the people, let the people decide for themselves what to ascertain from the facts. Is it possible that freedom of press is going too far? When the press endanger lives, invade privacy, form sentiments based on which side they support? How can we even decide anymore what’s right and what’s wrong? When we live in a hypocritical society that is “free” and is still spoon-fed opinions by “leading news channels”? Do we really need this anymore? It’s all just a business, run by corporates only hoping to get trp’s, making us live in this zeitgeist. India, and all the other countries in the world, wake up! This is the information age, this is an age where some goon sitting in the USA knows when a Chinese guy’s searching for tank man, relays it to china who promptly make him disappear to work in a paddy field for the government. This is an age where terrorists from “Third world nations” can access technology, get a map of Washington DC and blow it up. Do we really need this anymore? Do we need media moguls governing our actions? If this is a democracy, where am I? A small plea to every budding journalist out there. You’re job is simple, relay facts, let people decide for themselves. We’re sick of sensationalization, of suicide cases of 15 years ago, of journalists giving commentary of anti-terror operations and endangering lives. We’re sick of all of you messing with our lives, our privacy and our sense to deduce things. We don’t want you to try to rule our lives, we don’t want you to tell us that Sania Mirza’s engagement was broken off in the headlines of the newspaper. We want to know the news, not the drama of the lives of people that actually have them. To every anti-communist that exists in the world, congratulations, you’ve just woken up to your worst nightmare. This time, it isn’t Mao, Che or the CPIM. Welcome to the media!